Bentley, Elizabeth

Bentley, Elizabeth. Out of Bondage. Devin-Adair. 1951. 311 pp.

In this autobiographical account Miss Bentley, an American College girl, describes how she entered the Communist party, took part in its secret underground for ten years, and later collaborated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation after she left the party. Although her story on its appearance was ridiculed by some reviewers as "schoolgirlish" and "phoney," many of her most startling charges have been confirmed by later investigation.

Point to Ponder

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"Liberty is about us as social beings, and so it is a social concept."

Charles Fried, Modern Liberty, 2007 p. 76.

BK: Think about this - (a) Many advocates of liberty focus on egoism and individualism as the foundation of liberty. Fried does as well by grounding liberty in our individual autonomy. The claim that liberty is a social concept is debatable. (b) This debate is both political and metaphysical - 1. Is the nature of my liberty, as an ethical restraint on you, and the state, socially determined? 2. Is the source of our concept of liberty, so that it is part of our language that we can talk about, formed through social interaction.

Could Crusoe, without Friday, be said to have any liberty? Would Friday, without Crusoe, ever have formed the idea of liberty?